


Art and Alchemy

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Class Issues, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pastiche, Period Typical Attitudes, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-30 10:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: I hope you enjoyed this treat, and that it didn’t stray too far from your prompt. I also hope it’s obvious that the marginalization of the poor and of women in this pastiche should not be read as positive; I was grinding my teeth writing things like that, but strove to remain authentic to the source texts/characters. I also could not have written this without access to McGill’s excellent library, in particular the scholarship of Linda Dryden and Theodora Goss. The latter, especially, highlights how prevalent scientific references are in Dorian Gray, and how both texts grapple with 19th century anxieties about scientific advances, among others. (Also, anyone who likes Victorian pastiche and wants to see the women of Gothic Victoriana get their due should immediately read Theodora Goss's fictional Athena Club series. Seriously, get them right now.) Finally, the timelines of these two novels do not play well together, and may feel somewhat tortured here.





	Art and Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



They met in a Soho brothel that specialised in introducing gentlemen to working-class boys. It was completely illegal, of course, but charming. At the time, Dorian used to frequent such places with his chemist friend Alan. In a way, it was Alan who introduced them.

They were leaving when Alan grew pale. He had noticed an older man following a rent boy into a backroom, and started. Dorian wondered what he was in for now. Alan and his guilt-laden tirades were getting irritating.

“I know that man,” Alan whispered. He was violating perhaps the only rule here, but Dorian said nothing. “A medical man, by profession – a Dr. Jekyll.” Alan sighed. “You know I can’t bear to be seen in places like this. I wish to God I’d never let you talk me into it.”

“ _You_ called on _me_ ,” Dorian countered. “You always do. Anyway, even if this friend or colleague of yours saw you, you’re not doing anything he hasn’t.”

“You miss my point entirely.” Alan left, fuming and alone. Dorian chose to linger. He thought he had seen something interesting in Jekyll’s face – a certain detachment or reflectiveness that set him apart from the ordinary furtive sinner. Perhaps he’d imagined it. When they spoke again, he would ask Alan what sort of man Jekyll was. One good thing about Alan Campbell was his ability to tell the men of genius in his field from the middle class, pretentious pedants.

He waited around, nursing a drink. Within half an hour he spotted Jekyll again, leaving the bedroom. Over the background noise of drunken laughter, Dorian heard the young rent boy bidding the doctor farewell, and calling him by quite a different name. Dorian smiled to himself. It wasn’t uncommon for gentlemen to adopt aliases while pursuing their vices. He met Jekyll’s eye, inviting the doctor to join him.

“This place is a sort of paradise, don’t you think?” Dorian asked. “In a pagan sense. Isolated from our century, and from the outside world. I’m sorry–” he extended his hand– “ _Hyde_ , isn’t it?” He emphasized the pseudonym he’d overheard. A muscle in Jekyll’s face twitched, but he accepted Dorian’s greeting.

“Will you join me for a drink?” Dorian continued. “They have a fine selection here, even if their priorities lie elsewhere.”

He didn’t know why he said it. It had been years since he pursued anyone older than himself. But some instinct whispered that this man’s acquaintance could be valuable, even enlightening. Who was he to disobey? He drew closer.

Jekyll faltered for the briefest moment before nodding.

*

They were friends longer than they were lovers. For several months, Dorian called frequently at Dr. Jekyll’s comfortable home, or received him at his own Mayfair house. Jekyll was refreshing. He combined his scientific accomplishments with a surprising knowledge of art, and excellent taste in wine. He was a visionary, too, despite his age. Certainly he was braver and cleverer than Alan Campbell. Alan could parrot scientific developments, like Darwin’s theory of evolution, but could not discern their logical implications. He lacked the imagination to see things through. Jekyll _had_ imagination, as well an interest in psychology. He wasn’t nearly as colourful or as witty as Lord Henry, and was sometimes too technical for Dorian’s taste, but he was worth visiting. Like Dorian, Jekyll sensed the urgency of applying scientific methods to the one thing that mattered – the human soul. They spent several afternoons by the fireside discussing what modern science could be. In Jekyll’s opinion, man was no longer a mere passive object of evolutionary forces. At last, men could direct their own destiny, if they had the courage to try. There was something compelling about the idea.

Once, when they had been friends for some time, Jekyll described his own research. It was as interesting as Dorian had expected. What troubled him was the moralizing tone Jekyll adopted. He claimed that his experiments would someday create a higher, better human race, by purging man of his lower appetites.

“Lower?” Dorian asked. He hated hypocrisy. It was absurd for Jekyll to profess belief in middle-class virtue, when just last week, they had spent several nights together enjoying the anonymity of Whitechapel’s back alleys. “And what would this higher, better man do with his leisure time? Or is it only the poor and the criminal classes who must be ‘purified,’ while gentlemen may still use their own judgement?”

Jekyll pursed his lips. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course I haven’t worked out the practicalities, of applying anything so profound beyond the initial test subjects.”

Dorian imagined his friend traveling to madhouses or prisons, and performing lobotomies on the inmates: this didn’t seem like the sort of experiment anyone would agree to if they had a choice. He let Jekyll continue.

“But everyone has two natures – or, rather, one dual nature. It would be a better world if our obedient and rebellious, or just and unjust, sides weren’t shackled together. If we could carve out that base part of ourselves, force it to go its separate way, what couldn’t men accomplish?”

There it was again, that disappointing self-righteousness. Almost anyone in society could spout such wishful nonsense. Dorian did not need Dr. Jekyll for that.

“ _You_ would give up the place where we met, for example? Or all those other vices that pass the time when fireside conversation grows dull – and for what? Mindless obedience to custom or prejudice?”

“The difference between good and evil is more than just ‘custom’ or ‘prejudice,’” said Jekyll, hotly.

Dorian arched an eyebrow.

“I know quite well what I’ve done with my life,” Jekyll admitted, looking down, “but it doesn’t change the _principle_ of the thing. The world I hope to bring about, or bring us closer to, _would_ be a finer one – perhaps even a Utopia. Can’t you imagine it? Whatever’s noble and good in each man going one way, without temptation, while the bad could go its own, without causing the higher self shame or remorse…”

Perhaps Dorian was mocking his friend’s work too soon, and risked touching a nerve. But Jekyll’s sudden sanctimoniousness annoyed him. Besides, he remembered Lord Henry subverting an old proverb by saying that, if one was in a hole, one should _keep_ digging. He couldn’t help it.

“It might be a more _interesting_ world if these ‘lower halves’ were free to develop without the tyranny of others. I won’t argue with you, but I think your aims are misguided.” He thought of the square Jekyll lived in. Once it had been among the most dignified in London. Today it was a patchwork of wealthy and apparently blameless tenants, and various rabble. So many places were like that now. The city, like the human brain, had Heaven and Hell in it, in close proximity.

“Isn’t life richer, because of its temptations and contradictions? Yours certainly is.”

But Jekyll proved unable to face criticism with grace. He turned on Dorian. He chastised him for failing to understand, for being a mere dilettante, and for believing in fanciful and superstitious theories which were not science. Dorian could have fought back in earnest. He could have said, rightly, that Jekyll sounded like a nagging woman, as if the best defense was to go on the attack. But he didn’t bother. Instead he said good day, disinterested, and asked the butler to show him out.

*

They lost touch after that. Perhaps it was silly, quarrelling over a difference of opinion and some trivial teasing. It didn’t matter. Dorian nearly forgot that friendship altogether, as people do with those who drift out of their lives. He supposed Jekyll had been right in calling him a dilettante. His fondness for the sciences did not last long, and he soon cancelled several subscriptions that had interested him for a season. There were too many other mysteries to absorb him.

Years later, another chance word in that seedy Soho establishment reminded Dorian of his former friend. Perhaps he was feeling sentimental. Alan was no longer alive, and, with Lord Henry busy with his divorce proceedings, Dorian was relying more than usual on paid company. He’d grown close to a boy who worked in that house. They were intimate enough for the young man, Tony, to share some of his secrets with Dorian, who was surprisingly grateful.

“I wish they was all like you,” Tony said, with evident admiration in his voice. They were ensconced in a locked room, the bed soft beneath them, although most of the furnishings were cheap and worn. Dorian turned to his companion.

“I mean, the gentleman what come in here. Take this ugly fellow from last week, for example. I don’t see why _you_ ever have to pay for it, but him? Something about him made me hate him the moment I saw him. Everyone said that. I was glad he didn’t look twice at me, or I’d have punched him instead. I thought someone said his name was Hyde, and I wish he _would_.”

Dorian hid his smile, and murmured something about how age and ugliness could set the world against anyone so afflicted. Tony shook his head.

“It wasn’t that,” he insisted. “There’s plenty of old men come here, but he wasn’t. He looked young enough, but there was something wrong with him. It felt like he was – well, everything that’s low and nasty about people going free, dressed up like a man.”

“It’s a shame you’re not a poet,” remarked Dorian. “You could have written of the Utopia where everything base and unjust in the human soul may go its own way, no longer shackled to its opposite.”

The realization filtered into his mind then. He _sounded_ like his old friend Dr. Jekyll. So did this boy – this handsome, uneducated specimen of London’s poor. Hyde must be brutal indeed to unsettle someone who’d grown up amidst brutality and coarseness. And wasn’t that the assumed name Jekyll had used, in this very place? He remembered that day, long ago, when he had brought Alan Campbell here. The memory made him grimace. Alan had shot himself last month.

“Beg your pardon?” Dorian heard Tony asking.

With an effort he turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand and to the boy lying beside him.

“Never mind.” He sat up, took a cigarette from a silver case, and began to smoke it before offering it to Tony. The young man’s words must be a coincidence. Surely there were hundreds of hideous and lecherous old men by the name of Hyde, and yet…

“What did he look like?”

Tony frowned as he considered the question.

“I can’t say – can’t really describe him. There wasn’t much to him, except that he was a small man, and somehow wrong. Wrong in the head, maybe, or deformed somewhere.”

Nothing like Dr. Jekyll. The doctor was a tall man, and had once been handsome. Besides, Jekyll may have liked it rough, but he didn’t strike fear into the hearts of his whores on sight. Still, Dorian wondered if some connection were possible. Was the idea absurd?

He held the cigarette case out to Tony.

“You can keep it, in exchange for a favour. I’d like you to tell me more about this Hyde, if you see him again. Will you do that for me?”

Tony took the cigarette case, then gave Dorian a look of wonder and longing – rare commodities in a place like this. But Tony was young, and new at his trade. He would do anything for Dorian.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested in that sort of gossip.”

“Gossip is charming,” replied Dorian, standing up and beginning to dress. “It’s men preaching at me that I can’t stand.” He turned his face away. “Take care of that cigarette case, and yourself.”

That wasn’t the last time Dorian heard of this man Hyde. Soon, it seemed, every street-walker and rent boy in London was railing against him. Their descriptions of him were strikingly similar. Loathsome to see, pitiless, pure evil. The refrain was curious, and must be exaggerated. No one was pure evil. Dorian knew too well that violence and cruelty could surface anywhere.

“They say he’s a murderer, that Hyde,” Tony, always eager to please, informed Dorian the next time they saw each other. “Can you imagine?”

Dorian winced. There were certain subjects – certain sins – even he did not wish to discuss. The memories they stirred were unbearable.

Tony added, “I heard he killed a girl out in Spitalfields, just trampled her in a fit of rage. I wonder what you’d have to be thinking to do that – to actually kill someone –”

“ _Enough_ ,” Dorian snapped. It was all he could do to keep from shuddering at the thought of his own crimes, or, worse, letting that hunted animal fear of discovery overwhelm him. “Have you any – reliable evidence of this?”

“I ain’t a court of law, you know.”

“True,” Dorian said coldly. “And you needn’t play at being one – or at being part of Scotland Yard. Just do what I’m paying you for.”

He ignored the stunned, sullen expression that came into Tony’s face. When he left in the small hours of the morning, he regretted enlisting the boy in his half-hearted investigation. There was probably nothing to investigate or learn, except the minor coincidence of a name.

And yet, it wasn’t Dorian who was on trial in this matter, was it? His interest returned with time. Another person’s crimes might distract him for a while. They would, at least, have the charm of novelty, unlike his own. They might be very novel indeed, if his old friend had succeeded in his mad experiments, and resurrected his alias for that reason. After all, monstrous things, things the dull and cowardly prayed were impossible, were real. He knew that. Maybe he’d been wrong to dismiss Dr. Jekyll.

He rather hoped so.

For the first time in four or five years, he found himself calling at Dr. Jekyll’s house. He didn’t expect much of a welcome, and he was right. Poole, the butler, tried to be helpful. He remarked how long it had been, and asked Dorian to wait, in case his master was caged in the laboratory. Dorian assured him that he didn’t mind.

“By the way,” he added, with his most gracious smile. “Do you know anything of a man called Hyde? I thought I heard there was some connection between him and Dr. Jekyll, though I can’t remember. I might be wrong, too.”

Was that a slight flinch in Poole’s calm face? How interesting. Perhaps he _was_ onto something.

“Yes – the Doctor hired an assistant by that name some time ago,” Poole explained. “A young gentleman, I believe. We don’t see much of him.”

He went into the house, and soon returned with his master’s regrets. Dorian wondered if Jekyll still held a grudge, if he were simply busy with work, or if there were some other explanation – something making him skittish about prying eyes.

It was a rare fine autumn day. Dorian walked round his old friend’s house, enjoying that familiar contrast between the by-street of thriving shops, the empty courtyard, and the street opposite, with its decaying houses that had once belonged to rich and distinguished men. He liked to imagine the people who had lived there in years past, and how so many of them must have ruined lives and fortunes. On a whim, he entered the courtyard between the house and the laboratory. He glanced up. Somehow, he was not surprised to see Dr. Jekyll sitting by an open window. Dorian smiled at him, making sure the sunlight illuminated his face. He wanted to speak to Jekyll, and he had one card left to play.

There: he thought the older man’s eyes widened at the sight of him.

“Your servant said you were hard at work in your laboratory,” Dorian called out, “but isn’t that the building across the court? Unless you’ve redecorated.”

“I see you haven’t changed,” Jekyll replied, “in more ways than one.”

Encouraged, Dorian took another step toward the window. “Come, now. I found you out fair and square. Won’t you at least speak to me?”

Within ten minutes, he was seated in Jekyll’s library, with a glass of wine before him. The room was as he remembered it, but Jekyll had changed a great deal, as if something had drained him. Time, of course, and perhaps care. There was both pity and pleasure in observing it. There always was, in seeing friends and lovers age, and knowing that Dorian, at least, had been spared that fate.

“I fear I may sound very rude,” Jekyll said, sitting down, “but I don’t have long, and I want to know your secret.”

Dorian was prepared for the question.

“My secret? Only this: that being a dilettante, as you said, seems to agree with me.” And he explained one of Lord Henry’s half-joking theories. Intellect, he said, was sure to ruin anyone’s looks. From an aesthetic point of view, one was better off _not_ thinking.

“I have no ambitions to occupy me, as you do, no great discoveries to make or tedious charitable projects to worry about.”

His companion was unmoved. Perhaps he was better prepared for Dorian’s teasing.

“I don’t believe any of that,” he said. “For one thing, there’s no plausible biological mechanism for that to be the case. For another, you’re far too clever ‘not to think’, as you say. Besides, I know something of the life you lead.”

Dorian’s smile never wavered. “I could say the same to you.”

“Well, yes, God knows I’ve no place judging anyone. I’m not trying to be a hypocrite – but that sort of life isn’t kind to one’s health. It _must_ catch up with you someday.”

For a moment Dorian was, absurdly, tempted to explain, or at least to hint, but he could not. The last time he revealed himself to anyone was too horrible. It was better to know about others while concealing one’s own secrets. Anyway, he was sick of himself and his misdeeds. That was the reason he’d come here. So he waited for the silence to grow awkward, and for the other man to change the subject.

“Are you here to rekindle your interest in social Darwinism, or whatever it was? Or was it our friendship you hoped to revive?”

Dorian’s friendship was fatal – even he couldn’t deny that – unless, perhaps, Jekyll was hiding something equally fantastic…

“I get bored if I try to follow any one creed or system for too long,” replied Dorian. “And I fear many of your colleagues have lost sight of the only thing worth investigating – human nature. You can’t disagree with that. That’s why our friendship was so gratifying, for a while.”

Jekyll’s mouth curved, ironically, and almost imperceptibly.

“How’s your research going?” asked Dorian, sipping his wine. “I realize I shouldn’t have mocked it, or provoked you.” And he gave a laugh that was disarming, and sounded rather shy, and that, in his experience, few people could resist.

There was a strange gleam in the older man’s eyes. “In fact, I’ve had a breakthrough a little over a year ago. I’ve been working on a drug – a certain chemical compound, to cause the most peculiar reaction. You’d find it awfully technical, by your own admission.”

“This wonder drug to purify mankind? Hardly.”

“Oh, it does that, in a sense.”

“Do tell me. Isn’t that the sort of advance you’d want to share with everyone – even publish in the _Lancet_ , or some such?”

“I’m still testing it.”

Jekyll was being cagey. It was not surprising, but Dorian had come here for more than that.

“Well, I’m eager to hear it. I’m sorry we lost touch, you know. You always had such grand goals.”

“You know I work best in secret – though you might not understand that, either.”

Dorian laughed again. “Suit yourself. Perhaps I forfeited my right to learn more years ago. I’m glad, at least, that you’ve hired an assistant to help you solve the mystery of good and evil. Your servant mentioned him.”

The words hit their mark: Jekyll’s face went pale. Dorian pretended not to notice.

“Strange coincidence about the name, isn’t it? Hyde. I remember you using that alias to indulge your own vices.”

The crackle of the fire was audible in the sudden quiet. Dorian watched Jekyll purse his lips, and try to control himself.

“I knew I should not have admitted you – but since you’re here, whom else have you been speaking to?”

“Only Poole, just now, and yourself, years ago. You had very distinctive research interests. But whatever it is you’re doing, you can trust me.”

“Not likely. You can’t have gleaned much from Poole, whom I _do_ trust, or from the crudest sketch of my work when it was in its infancy.”

“There’s also the fact that every whore in London is terrified of this creature of yours. They talk about him in all your old haunts.”

“You believe men and women like that?”

“Some of them.” Dorian shrugged. “Come on. I’m not here to condemn you or try to stop you –”

“If you were,” said Jekyll, with uncharacteristic fierceness, “I could make such a scandal about you and your life that I promise it would destroy you.”

A doubtful assertion. Nevertheless, it was unnerving to be on the receiving end of that particular threat. Dorian held out his hands in a reassuring gesture.

“I could probably do the same to you, but I’ve no interest in trying, or in revealing anyone’s secrets. I was just wondering if congratulations were in order – if you somehow learned to separate good from evil within the self…”

A muscle in the doctor’s face twitched. “Who else knows?”

“No one. Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”

“Then, yes. I suppose congratulations _are_ in order, if you can be trusted.”

“As long as you tell me how you did it.” Dorian was thrilled. To think such things happened to others – that perhaps he wasn’t quite alone…

“Is it like a disguise? Or some narcotic to remove all traces of remorse from the brain? But no one recognized you; I assume someone would have, if its effects were only psychological.”

“It’s a little of both.”

And he told Dorian a bit about his experiments, the transformations, and his forays through London in his impenetrable disguise. How wrong Dorian had been about him. Jekyll was a hypocrite for having claimed to work for a greater good, but he must have abandoned that pretense – that sanctimonious streak – at last. Now that he had little choice, he showed great candour in admitting how he enjoyed inhabiting his alter ego. More importantly, he was a genius. Who else could have isolated the roots of sin in the brain or the soul, and identified those elements which could work upon them, like some expert musician playing his instrument? It was extraordinary.

Dorian did not ask about the rumoured attack on an East End girl. Tony could have been wrong, his sources distorted. Besides, there were bound to be some casualties and some suffering at the birth of a new world.

“Incredible,” he remarked, when his friend had finished speaking. “You know you could remake humanity in your image. Although – ” He couldn’t help teasing, just a little – “You would never have made a novelist. Really, the same alias all this time? You’ll end up sharing your secret with the world, whether or not you want to.”

“Well, I wish you’d share _your_ secret with me first,” Jekyll sighed, casting a longing look at Dorian’s face.

That was when Dorian remembered. Before his death, Basil Hallward had conjectured that some chemical poison must have contaminated his picture. Dorian had dismissed him, at the time. He’d thought only of himself, of his own despair and rage. The words echoed in his mind, making his laughter die on his lips. Had there been something in them after all – something other than horror? Was there some substance – something material, like the ingredients of Jekyll’s drug – that had got into the paints and given rise to that fantastic, symbiotic relationship? He wanted suddenly to unburden himself and to ask about this theory. He _could_ : all he needed to do was answer his friend’s question. But he resisted.

“Next time, perhaps.”

And he left quite abruptly, over the other man’s protests.

*

Jekyll’s story intrigued him for weeks. Then news broke of the death of Sir Danvers Carew, prominent Member of Parliament, at the hands of one Edward Hyde. The killer’s description was by now familiar, and left Dorian in a more precarious position. He wouldn’t inform, of course. What good would it do? No one would believe the truth, and fear of the gallows would no doubt force Jekyll into sobriety, at least for a while. Hyde could cease to exist, leaving the doctor in his place. It was fascinating to think about, really; he had half a mind to congratulate his friend, as he had done earlier. But the horror of Basil Hallward’s murder remained fresh in his memory. Part of him hated to be reminded of such awful things.

“I told you he was a murderer.” Tony _had_ to ruin their reunion, didn’t he? Dorian gritted his teeth. He’d created another sort of monster by encouraging Tony’s interest in the case. If this kept up he might have to find a new favourite.

“Not now.” Dorian tilted his head down, focused on portioning out the green spiced paste from its crystal vase. They were already locked in their room, with everything they needed for a night of bliss. It would be a waste to quarrel, send Tony away, then have to find another companion. Besides, he liked Tony, enough to give him a second chance.

“What’s that, then?”

He looked up to see Tony leaning over the assorted glasses and bottles, still clutching a newspaper in his hand.

“ _C’est un des Paradis artificiels,_ ” Dorian replied, “‘an artificial paradise,’ as Baudelaire called it. Nothing as overpowering as opium or laudanum. You’ll like it. And if you don’t, that leaves more for me.” He reached for the paper, laughing, his fingers brushing Tony’s. “Will you put that away, for heaven’s sake?”

But he grew more patient as the wine and the drug took effect. When he was spent after sex and feeling a clarity and a joy he had not felt in some time, he picked up the discarded newspaper. Tony shook his head.

“I don’t understand you. One minute you’re as interested as anyone – more, because you _asked_ me to report what I heard. The next you’re angry at me for trying to do that.”

Dorian put an arm around Tony’s shoulders. If only he could explain why the crimes of another both compelled and distressed him, in rapid succession. He couldn’t, though. He’d been right not to confide in Jekyll despite the doctor’s own secrets. A boy like Tony wouldn’t even believe such things – certainly wouldn’t believe Dorian capable of violence or cruelty.

“You should have known you had only to wait until my curiosity overcame me. I can’t help changing from day to day.” He realized that that statement was even truer of Dr. Jekyll, and laughed again.

“What is it?” Tony asked.

Somehow, despite the closeness and the euphoria, Dorian held his tongue.

“Never mind. More wine, please? Thanks.”

Tony obliged. He shifted position, shrugging off Dorian’s touch and reaching for the bottle. Dorian turned his attention to the paper.

“That’s a handsome reward they’re offering for Hyde’s capture.”

“I thought so, too,” Tony said. “Whoever gets it could set himself up like a gentleman.”

“Not quite, but it could last you several years, if you weren’t too extravagant. Longer than your pretty face, or your fitness for your current trade. God, these journalists keep talking about the money, and remarking that Sir Danvers _wasn’t_ robbed. Do they think of nothing else? It’s so vulgar.”

“What did you mean, about my ‘trade’?”

Dorian ignored Tony’s question and the sigh that followed it.

“Well, do you think they’ll nab him, at least? Hyde?”

“Not likely.”

“Why not? A man’s got to live somewhere, and be around people sometimes. And if he tries to leave London, someone’ll recognize him on the train or the ship. Maybe you ain’t read that part yet, but the maid who witnessed it all said he was particularly evil-looking. Everyone just _knows_ him, ‘cause he looks wrong.”

“It’s only the shallow who do not judge by appearances,” replied Dorian, beaming. “Anyway, it’s a feeling I have. I doubt Hyde will trouble you or anyone else for a long time.”

“ _Why_?” Tony insisted. “’Cause – with respect – I think someone’s got to find him, and whoever does’ll be a hero. It’s not just the money –”

“They _won’t_. They’ll be offering that reward in vain; mark my words.”

He silenced Tony’s next question with a kiss, which the younger man leaned into, and they spoke no more of Hyde for the rest of the night.

*

The next time Dorian called at Jekyll’s house, he was met with another chilly reception. He had the impression that his friend still did not wish to see him. Perhaps that was wise. The doctor looked awful, from guilt or renunciation, Dorian couldn’t tell.

“I warn you,” Jekyll began, as soon as they were alone in the library, “you mustn’t speak to me of terrible things. I never wanted to tell you in the first place, but since you guessed – since you forced the truth out of me – I assure you that Hyde is in the past. I’ve learned my lesson; that’s all over now. But if you say anything, I promise I will retaliate. As I told you, I know something of your life, too.”

He did not know the worst things Dorian had done. The rest mattered little in comparison. Nevertheless, it seemed best to humour him.

“Yes, I remember. You said something about destroying me. I won’t risk that; you’re safe enough. I only hope you’re finding satisfaction in charity and religion, or whatever the newspapers were praising you for.”

Jekyll’s hands twitched. “I _am_. I doubt you’ll believe me, but I heal the sick, and seek nothing in return. I try to do good. And I pray for forgiveness, and for strength.”

“Prayers themselves can do evil as well as good,” Dorian remarked. “At least, their _answers_ can. I’m only sorry you can’t continue your work – that such a discovery must be buried. It seems unfair to you, when the world lauds every pedant who contributes nothing of value.”

“You’re awfully hard on my colleagues,” Jekyll countered. “Anyway, ‘nothing’ is a better contribution to the world than Hyde was. You don’t know what it’s like to live with yourself, with that stain on your conscience.”

Dorian bit his lip. “Well. Something has certainly taken its toll on you – remorse, or perhaps abstinence –”

“How dare you? You can leave my house, if you’re going to speak like that.”

“All right; I’m sorry. Anyway, I suppose you can revert to your earlier tactics, and sin in your own capacity like everyone else.”

The thought made Dorian brighten. He imagined bringing Jekyll back to that Soho brothel, even sharing Tony with him. Tony would suspect nothing. It would be _so_ different – a delightful experience…

“I’m not going to,” Jekyll insisted. “I’m through with that. I have to be.”

“You’re welcome to call on me should you change your mind,” said Dorian. He hated to lose such an opportunity. “You have my address.”

“I have no intention of speaking to you again, after today. You’ve been horrid. You always were; it’s just so damn difficult to see past your charms. There’s only one more thing I want from you.”

“And that is?”

“Your secret. It’s not natural, your youth and looks – not after how you’ve lived all these years.”

He suspected too much. Worse, if Dorian stayed any longer, he might be tempted to tell the truth. He’d been right to act spiteful and provocative, to bar that path before he tried to walk it.

“I prayed for them,” he answered simply.

“That’s all? You can’t be –”

“That’s all.”

*

He didn’t see Tony for a while. He needed some time with his own, proper social circle, and with some of the women whose company he had missed, though they were hardly part of society. It was already January when he sought Tony out again. To his surprise, he found the boy gone from the house where he had worked. There was something unpleasant in the atmosphere, too, a tension in people’s faces when Dorian asked after Tony.

“You didn’t hear?” Jim, one of the other boys, was incredulous. “Tony’s dead.”

“ _Dead_?”

“Murdered last week.” Jim took something from his pocket – a folded newspaper, wrapped around something metal and badly rusted. On closer inspection, Dorian recognized the silver cigarette case he had given Tony. The rust was really a layer of dried blood.

“I think this is yours,” Jim said. “The girl what found the body didn’t want the coppers to see it, and I tracked her down and made her give it to me. Local girl – said it was an awful sight…”

Jim handed Dorian the newspaper, but wouldn’t do more than hold up the cigarette case until he received a coin. Dorian left then. The news had suppressed his appetite for pleasure, although Jim would have made a fine substitute for Tony. He’d slept with both of them on one occasion, but for now, Dorian wanted more than anything to get away from this place.

He hailed a cab in the street. The roar of traffic and of human voices sickened him, and he snapped at the driver. Once inside, he wrapped the cigarette case in his handkerchief. Handling the thing was distasteful, though it must be significant that the killer had left it. Dorian hesitated before opening the paper. When he did, he had to dig through several pages about the ongoing Carew investigation. At last he found what he was looking for. ‘ _Brutal murder of a Piccadilly hotel porter, Anthony Worth, eighteen._ ’ Of course, his _other_ occupation was unprintable; it would only stain the boy’s memory, in the eyes of that monstrous thing called the nineteenth century public. The paper spoke of the peculiar violence of the crime, the evidence of a struggle, and the distress of the flower seller who found the body and of the victim’s family, to whom he would send money. There were no witnesses. But that brief article was a more thorough tribute than Dorian had expected. The death of a rent boy, unlike that of a Member of Parliament, would cause little uproar, though Tony had been far more handsome than the old men who made up the Commons.

He stared out the window at the grey dusk, suddenly cold. Basil Hallward had once joked, in happier times, that no one in Parliament was worth painting. Dorian pushed the thought away, and wished he hadn’t remembered. Basil’s disappearance had caused quite a stir, too, enough that people still sometimes talked about it. But he couldn’t think of the past now, not with this fresh loss on his mind. Had poor Tony been spying on Hyde? His death was very like that of Sir Danvers, even if the idiots in the paper or at Scotland Yard didn’t see the resemblance. Dorian had a feeling that abstinence had proved too much for Dr. Jekyll. Had he returned to that area? Perhaps he’d run into Tony seeking the reward money and the glory of solving a celebrated crime. The young man had shown great interest in the matter. It was foolish of him, not to give it up.

But Dorian was not responsible. He had said nothing to Jekyll that could have identified the young man. As for Tony’s curiosity about Hyde, Dorian may have encouraged it, at first – months ago – but he was not to blame for the result. That was no sin at all, compared to the other things he’d done. And poor Tony would have come to some bad end or other. Boys like him usually did, from venereal disease, or one of those epidemics of poverty and overcrowding, or the hardships of a prison sentence.

Still he hated to think of Tony's body, broken and twisted in some dark alley, or of the drip of blood on the cobblestone. It was such a waste of youth and beauty. He wondered if Tony _had_ blamed him – had died cursing the name Dorian Gray, as Alan Campbell and so many others must have…

He couldn’t think about it – about any of it. He was grateful he’d found a driver willing to take him further east, down to the docks. He could numb himself more effectively with opium than with sex or anything else.

When he returned to society, three days later, he thought of calling on Jekyll. He hesitated. He didn't know what he would say, or if he would be putting himself at risk. But the point proved moot: he was not admitted to that house again, and heard, within a week, that his old friend had died under strange circumstances. The news was neither surprising nor, entirely, unwelcome.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this treat, and that it didn’t stray too far from your prompt. I also hope it’s obvious that the marginalization of the poor and of women in this pastiche should not be read as positive; I was grinding my teeth writing things like that, but strove to remain authentic to the source texts/characters. I also could not have written this without access to McGill’s excellent library, in particular the scholarship of Linda Dryden and Theodora Goss. The latter, especially, highlights how prevalent scientific references are in Dorian Gray, and how both texts grapple with 19th century anxieties about scientific advances, among others. (Also, anyone who likes Victorian pastiche and wants to see the women of Gothic Victoriana get their due should immediately read Theodora Goss's fictional Athena Club series. Seriously, get them right now.) Finally, the timelines of these two novels do not play well together, and may feel somewhat tortured here.


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